Israeli forces bombed targets in crowded Rafah, hours after US officials warned Tel Aviv not to expand the ground offensive into the southern city, where more than half of the Gaza Strip's 2.3 million people have fled.
US President Joe Biden has called Israel's actions in the war “excessive” in the harshest criticism yet from close ally Washington, amid concerns over a spike in civilian deaths in the enclave. I called it.
As the war enters its fifth month, Israeli ground forces remain concentrated in the city of Khan Yunis just north of Rafah, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said Rafah is next, with hundreds of thousands of thousands causing panic among the displaced people. There.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his soldiers to prepare for a ground assault on Rafah, alarming Egypt, which warned that ground operations in the Rafah area and mass evacuations across the border would undermine the 40-year-old peace treaty with Israel. It is said that it will become. The nearly sealed border between Gaza and Egypt is also the main entry point for humanitarian aid.
An estimated 1.2 million people have taken refuge in Rafah following Israeli evacuation orders ahead of continued military shelling and escalating ground attacks. Evacuation orders now cover two-thirds of the besieged area, but an estimated 300,000 Palestinians remain in the northern half of Gaza, where civilians were ordered to leave early in the war.
Even in areas that Israel has declared “safe zones,” such as Rafah, it routinely carries out airstrikes against what Hamas claims are targets. The government holds Palestinian groups responsible for civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip and claims they operate from civilian areas.